Canker Panel Backs Off From Ban On Tree Sales

LAKE ALFRED — Faced with heated protests from citrus-nursery owners who fear further economic losses, a government citrus-canker advisory committee Thursday rejected a proposal to ban temporarily all tree sales to grove owners.

The discovery of canker at two more nurseries in recent weeks is a sign that the incurable plant disease is active in the state during the hot, rainy months of late summer, members of the state and federal task force said. But members were divided over whether to stop nursery sales for a month as a precaution, even though they all said they expect to find more canker.

A motion to ban sales through Sept. 30 failed by a 6-to-9 vote with one abstention. The committee, formed last summer after canker appeared in the state for the first time in more than 50 years, makes recommendations to Florida Agriculture Com-

missioner Doyle Conner and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Gordon Johnson, the USDA's top official in Florida, was opposed to the ban, while Charles Poucher, director of the canker task force, favored a temporary ban.

But Johnson, Poucher and other committee members, who represent scientists, regulatory officials and the citrus industry, agreed that the effort must continue and that the battle has not been lost.

Johnson warned that, if the citrus industry abandons eradication and tries to live with canker, it will mean the end of the state's $250 million-a- year fresh-fruit industry. The disease is not transmitted in juice, but it can be carried on fresh fruit.

Poucher, the state's top canker-eradication official, said the state cannot risk waiting to see if exposed trees actually have the disease. ''If we don't destroy exposed trees, we'll never eradicate citrus canker.''